The Senate approved of the project amending the Electoral Code regarding the elections for the European Parliament. According to the proposed amendment, each constitutency will have at least three candidates for MEPs assigned to it.
In favour of the unchanged version of the amendment were 60 senators, 27 were against and one abstained.
Currently, in the elections for the European Parliament there are 13 constituencies - one constituency per one or more voivodeships or part of a voivodeship. At the moment, there's no specific number of candidates that can run from each constituency.
The elections to the European Parliament are being held based on propotional representation.
The votes cast on each list are being converted into seats by D'Hondt method on a national scale.
Only after the number of seats per each party is determined, they're being allocated between particular lists of candidates.
Finally, the seats are being assigned to the candidates that got the highest number of votes on each list.
Higher threshold
According to the proposed amendment, each constitutency will have at least three candidates for MEPs assigned to it.
According to the Senate Legislation Office, the division into constituencies proposed in the new law "will make Poland the only EU state in which effective threshold will be three times the European minimum of 5 percent".
"The effective threshold in Poland will be 16,5 percent. This will be the minimum of votes required for any committee to win a ticket," Senate legislators indicate.
The date is set
The elections for the European Parliament are held in the period determined by the European law and are announced by the President in the form of a resolution, no later than 90 days before the vote which must be scheduled for a holiday. The chief of the electorate office (KBW) said that the electorate period in Poland falls between 23 and 26 May, 2019. "As the electoral code dictates that the election must be held on a non-working day, the vote will be held on 26 May, 2019," said Magdalena Pietrzak.
She added that the KBW is responsible for organizing and holding the elections.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 International, PAP